Despite rising domestic tensions between Russia and the Trump administration, the two nations continue to move forward on shared goals beyond the planet, from the International Space Station to Venus exploration. NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have just signed an agreement at the 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, to work together on the orbital Moon base. to join forces on a new mission called the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), an American-led plan to put a human-accessible space station in cislunar, or near-Moon, orbit.

Designed to dock with NASA's next-generation Orion spacecraft, the DSG would support a crew of four astronauts, making it an ideal pit stop for human and robotic exploration of the lunar surfaceas well as a staging point for deep space missions to Mars, Venus, or other distant locations in the Solar System. The station's modules are currently scheduled to be built in the 2020s. The plan at this time is for Roscosmos to develop standardized docking and life support systems, and perhaps provide carrier rocket assistance.

"NASA is pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration," Robert Lightfoot, NASA's acting administrator, said in a NASA statement. "Statements such as this one signed with Roscosmos show the gateway concept as an enabler to the kind of exploration architecture that is affordable and sustainable."

The United States, Russia, China, the European Union, and other space powers have expressed interest in developing inhabited Moon villages.